Hacking for National Security teams showcase innovation, resourcefulness, determination in final presentations

University students in Australia aren’t what they once were. Hand them a challenge actively crippling their nation’s defences, and they’ll stop at nothing to solve it. In the case of two teams participating in the pilot Hacking for National Security course at University of Southern Queensland this past term, teams were given opportunity to tackle real-life, real time problems with the potential to redefine how the Department of Defence  will solve these problems. From devising strategies to improve critical analysis to delivering a first-of-its-kind path to sustainable jet fuel for the Royal Australian Air Force, the undergraduate teams rose before a complex challenge and innovated at startup speed.

To conclude the program, the two student teams presented their lessons learned to an audience of funders, Defence senior leaders, UniSQ faculty from multiple schools and members of the Common Mission Project, Australia. Teams highlighted experiences overcoming continual challenges, shared major pivots along the way, and outlined successes. All agreed on one overarching reality: the problem is always bigger than you think. Over the course of the semester, the teams, along with their problem sponsors and mentors, gained a depth of understanding that came to define their work. Using techniques like the Lean Startup method and problem curation, the teams addressed their problem sets over 12 weeks, holding 20 to 40 individual stakeholder conversations, conducting intensive technical research and using creative entrepreneurial problem solving to finally present solution reports to their government contacts.

Team Challenges:

Team Delta received its problem from sponsor Dr. Ross Kyprianou, technical lead of data analytics in the Agile Command and Control Science, Technology and Research (STaR) Shot program within Defence Science and Technology Group. The team mentor was Sarah Fraser, a veteran and innovation leader. The problem challenged them to aggregate data across multiple heterogeneous networks to detect and predict events of interest. Pulling from their shared IT backgrounds, the team of two, Lewis Jones and Reese Wise, addressed hidden and emergent challenges within this highly siloed and secure environment. In interviews with over 20 members of Defence staff, academia, and AI researchers in the private sector, they uncovered common themes that enabled them to gain a clear picture encapsulating the data aggregation problem’s core issue: tagging metadata appropriately and ensuring proper management of data sets. They were able to share valuable knowledge with Dr. Kyprianou’s team to generate long-term solutions and added clarity, and suggested incorporating software to catalogue existing metadata tagging services with a central search feature.

The team said the skills they acquired during the class are invaluable. “These skills translate across all businesses. Right now my partner and I can take many of the skills we gained, such as customer engagement and use that immediately in our careers. This is a huge tool set to now leverage in the real world in my actual job,” said Jones.

The Jericho team, examined solutions to the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) problem of a sovereign-supplied and certified JetA-1 fuel source. This problem came via sponsor WGCDR Paul Muscat, a wing commander from the RAAF’s Jericho Disruptive Innovation Directorate. The team was mentored by Melissa Wagner from the University of Tasmania, The team focused on sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, to replace 50 percent of fossil jet fuel while facing a lack of supply and high demand. The team, composed of Abi Salomen, Mark Smith, Duncan Taylor and Marcia Ruf, recognized early that Australia required an innovative infrastructure roadmap to meet the challenge. The team gained in-depth understanding of feedstocks, manufacture and supply infrastructures, and major delivery hubs, and undertook 36 interviews with stakeholders. Their final MVP was a nationwide government legislative policy framework that feeds into an existing strategy, along with an independent fuel steering committee that would be responsible for generating and driving transition fuel technology policy for compliance and mandatory fuel usage. 

In discussing the JetA-1 team’s outcomes, GPCAPT Michael Burgess-Orton, Director of the RAAF’s Jericho Disruptive Innovation explained, “You’re right that we need to engage the government appropriately. My gut feeling is that the timing is right for SAF. We have bipartisan support, and an incoming government that has clearly stated its desire for Sustainable Aviation Fuel. This is a good turning point.”

Linda Galligan, Head of the School of Mathematics at UniSQ, said the pilot class was a success and that UniSQ plans to run the class again next year, expanding the offer to students from a broader range of degrees. “It was great to have teams with no background in Defence, intel analysis, or biofuels realise the program is actually about problem solving. The teams’ performance bodes well for the future,” she said.

Background

Hacking for National Security is Australia’s version of a global course started by Stanford University in the U.S. six years ago as Hacking for Defense – a way to engage university students, who would never previously have considered working on national security problems. The class is now taught at more than 60 universities in the US and the UK as well four in Australia. In Australia, Hacking for National Security is supported by the Defence Research Accelerator Program, under the Next Generation Technologies Fund.